Amazon and Chewy Won the Puppy Boom. Now Pet Shops Are Biting Back
After Covid-19, big retailers now own 90% of the online pet food market. Can a new organization help small pet shops hang on?
As the cold darkness of winter set in and the calendar flipped to a second year of Covid life, Kaite Giordano, a fourth-grade teacher in New York City and the mother of seven-year-old James, made a major decision. To break free from the doldrums, their Brooklyn household needed to expand.
And so James got a new bestie: Chewie, a Cavapoo named after everyone’s favorite Wookie—not the online pet supply juggernaut. Although Giordano had never owned a dog before and wasn’t really a pet person, she thought a four-legged friend was just what the family needed. “The loneliness and isolation of the pandemic has been so hard,” she says. “I thought a dog could help offer emotional support for both of us.” So far, she says, Chewie has been a miracle worker. “James used to have trouble falling asleep, his mind racing for two hours with anxiety, and now he cuddles up with Chewie, and he’s out cold in 10 minutes,” Giordano says. “On the ride home from picking up the puppy, he said, ‘I just always wanted to have a friend during coronavirus to spend time and play with, and now I do.’”
